


Strange Interactions

by ncfan



Category: Herbert West - Reanimator - H. P. Lovecraft, LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: (because sex pollen seems entirely too light for Lovecraft), (mixed with failed reanimation serum), (until the pollen wears off), Alternate Universe, Aphrodisiacs, Because it's 1903 and it's all they have on hand, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Herbert is starved for affection and has a hard time articulating what he wants, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mutual Pining, No Refractory Period, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sex Pollen, Size Difference, Smut, Stephen is handsy and a bit of a tease, Vaseline as lubricant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:15:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26196988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: Herbert and Stephen make their way to the Chapman house one fall day to find that a field of strange flowers has grown up since their last visit. The pollen from these flowers, when mixed with a failed attempt at a serum suitable for reanimating human corpses, has an interesting effect on them both.
Relationships: Narrator (Herbert West - Reanimator)/Herbert West
Kudos: 12





	Strange Interactions

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing fully-explicit smut, and honestly, I have no excuse for any of this. But if you opened on this fic after reading the rating and reading the tags, you didn’t come here looking for my excuses. Enjoy!

There were few occasions on which Stephen could honestly say that Arkham and the surrounding countryside possessed any true beauty to it at all. There were small snatches to be found from time to time, and Stephen had learned to savor them, for they were invariably short-lived, soon to be overshadowed by some cloud or the furtive, hollow-eyed looks of the native residents of the town, soured by some secret that Stephen was never allowed to be part of in more than the most general sense. It was hard to appreciate beauty when it was that Stephen felt more acutely on the outskirts of this society than ever, shut out by the fear and the furtiveness of those people native to the town he currently called his home.

But there were moments when Arkham revealed itself as something other than a gray, dismal place, sour with the stink of fear that could become more or less distant with the speed of light depending on the time of day, the day of the week, the month of the year, the way the _wind_ was blowing, and yes, Stephen supposed he was being something close to bitter, but considering he had to _live_ here, at least for most of the year, he thought he had an excuse. There were moments like that, and Stephen had learned to appreciate them as much as he could. They were few and far between, and whenever he found one, he had no idea when he would experience the next.

It was fall, now, or at least it was _trying_ to be fall. The days were still imbued with a balmy warmth that recalled mid-spring more than it did what Stephen would have considered more appropriate to autumn, but the nights had been… Stephen didn’t go out very much at night, partly at Herbert’s insistence, and partly because the other men in his dormitory, particularly the ones who were from Arkham or elsewhere in the Miskatonic Valley would just stare at him as if he had grown a second head when he talked of wanting to see what Arkham looked like at night; he thought that Palmer might have _actually_ been looking for a second head. The first couple of times, Stephen hadn’t really let it get to him, but Herbert’s continued persistence and the quality of something close to desperation that entered into his voice after the first few admonishments, the persistent unflattering disbelief of Stephen’s fellows in the dormitories, that had worn him down enough that yes, Stephen himself avoiding going out in Arkham at night, particularly alone. But he had been to the public house a few times these past few weeks, had had to stay late after classes at the university a few times these past few weeks, and it had been impossible not to notice the chill in the air, the bite that was only growing sharper with each night that passed. Maybe within a few more weeks, as the days began to shorten in earnest, daytime temperatures would catch up with what had seen Stephen turning up his coat collar at night and gritting his teeth and wondering why the hell he hadn’t brought a scarf with him.

Whatever the difference between the temperature when the sun was up as opposed to when the sun was down, though the weather couldn’t seem to decide whether it wanted to be fall or summer, the countryside, at least, had clearly come to a decision. There were no leaves to crunch beneath Stephen’s feet as he moved slowly through the dense forest outside the part of Arkham he had just left from, but those leaves that clung stubbornly to the trees had begun in earnest to take on the hues of fall. As far as Stephen could see, on every tree that wasn’t an evergreen, there was not a single leaf that was wholly green in shade. Some were gilded gold and bronze and scarlet, some had had those hues overtake them completely, and when the sun caught on them, they shone in the early afternoon light as if they truly were made of highly polished metal, so bright that even to think of them dead and brown and moldering on the ground was honestly a bit depressing.

Stephen could have spent the rest of the afternoon just admiring the leaves fluttering gently in the crisp early-fall breeze, but he didn’t have that kind of time. People didn’t go out into the forests around Arkham just because they wanted to take a nice walk. Stephen was out here with a purpose. And he wasn't out here alone.

“Stephen?” Herbert was calling out to him from further up what was probably a deer track rather than an actual path, considering how narrow it was and how winding its progress through the woods, his soft voice distorted slightly by the wind. Ever sensitive to the cold, Herbert was wearing one of his coats over his jacket, though he had left it unbuttoned. His coat fluttered in the wind like the wings of a startled crow, and he made a sharp, hissing noise and reached up to try and fail to smooth down his mussed hair before asking him, “Are you coming?”

Rolling his eyes fondly, Stephen called out in response, “Yes, I’m coming. The Chapman place isn’t going anywhere, you know. It’s not like it could sprout legs and run off.”

Herbert shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe not, but we need light to see by if we want to pack up the equipment without breaking anything.”

“True enough.”

 _Herbert_ had not failed to notice how cold the nights were becoming, a fact entirely responsible for their heading out into the woods outside of Arkham on this balmy, windy Saturday afternoon, each of them carrying a large, empty bag over their shoulders. His insistence, and though Stephen really should have been spending this afternoon doing schoolwork or studying for the exams that were looming on the horizon (alright, so they were a few months off; Stephen had learned the hard way why he should start studying _early_ ), he found his schoolwork wasn’t nagging at him the way it might have been under other circumstances.

Some of the equipment they kept in the Chapman house, they had bought on an excursion or two—or three—into Boston. Others, Herbert had obtained by paying the custodians at the medical school to bring laboratory equipment that was about to be thrown out to him instead of disposing of it elsewhere. The cot they had moved into the house when it became clear that overnight stays were going to become at least semi-regular and Stephen slept much more easily on a bed than he did in a chair, Stephen couldn’t even remember now where they had found it. It wasn’t… Well, none of it was top of the line, now was it? It was either old enough that the university had deemed it not worth holding onto (though Stephen could only imagine the amount of trouble they would get into if it was found out that they had diverted the progress of several test tubes and beakers to the scrap heap), or the sort of cheap stuff a pair of students could afford on their own. Herbert was always concerned about how well any of it would do in extreme cold, _convinced_ that at least the stuff they had bought in Boston would crack or outright shatter if left in the farmhouse over winter, and so, here they were, heading into the woods on a Saturday afternoon to pack all of it up.

(It was going to be a hassle to take what they needed with them every time they paid the house a visit until the spring thaw. Stephen couldn’t be entirely unhappy about it, since it lessened the chances of the makeshift laboratory being discovered. But it was going to be an ungodly hassle, and not one he was looking forward to.)

“I don’t think I remembered to pour out the serum we were working on the last time we were here,” Herbert muttered as they picked their way down what Stephen was increasingly convinced _was_ a deer track, for he could not think of any path-setter who would have thought it a good idea to make their path wind to and fro like this, let alone have it cut so narrowly between two massively looming oak trees, so much so that Herbert could barely squeeze through the gap and Stephen just had to go around. He grimaced, though what looked like a grimace when directed at the world at large looked like a scowl when directed at himself. “It’ll be just our luck if somebody’s found it.”

“Nobody’s found it,” Stephen reassured him, pinning an encouraging smile to his lips. “Nobody’s found the _house_ the whole time we’ve been using it; they won’t have found the serum. Even if they did, they’d have no idea what it was.”

There was an advantage, a definite advantage, to all of their equipment being either the university’s castoffs, or cheap stuff purchased far away. There was a definite advantage to the fact that whenever Herbert had tried to prevail upon the medical faculty for the use of a dissection room or even just tried to explain in full his theories ( _their_ theories, at this point), he was dismissed with derision or laughter or derisive laughter or, in Dean Halsey’s case, either frank impatience or what Herbert considered an infuriatingly paternal/patronizing look of disappointment. If by some chance the laboratory in the Chapman house was ever discovered, there could be no question that it belonged to a medical student. But though Herbert was anxious of discovery, seemed convinced that anyone who found the laboratory would immediately be able to link it back to the two of them, so long as neither he nor Stephen were careless enough to leave any of their _notes_ in the house after a spell spent there, he really didn’t see _how_ it could be traced back to them. All anyone would have was their suspicions. There wasn’t a whole lot even the most hostile of the medical faculty could do with suspicions that could in no way be substantiated by anything material.

Herbert still fretted, and Stephen tried to point it out to him. He could hardly _fault_ Herbert his caution, though, considering just how much hostility they had encountered these past couple of years. There were times when expulsion from the university itself seemed, at least for Herbert, to be a real threat, though _that_ was a threat that Stephen thought _he_ might have been taking just a bit more seriously than Herbert. Better not to give those with the power to force them out anything resembling a leg to stand on.

“It was a good find,” Herbert agreed, favoring him with a small smile, and even if the smile was but brief, it still warmed Stephen far more than the weak sun shooting scattershot through the trees. “But just because we’ve never been found out before, doesn’t mean we never could be.”

“Hey, the last I checked, most people around here don’t _like_ going into the woods.”

And after a certain point, Stephen thought he had figured out why. It was…

Stephen hadn’t had much experience of forests before he came here. He had left Chicago but rarely as a boy, and though he could think back fondly on the many hours he had spent playing in one of the city’s parks, though there was greenery to be found in those parks, there was not what Stephen would call a true forest in any of them. Before he had come to Arkham, he thought he knew what forests were like, only to come here and discover that he had been _profoundly_ mistaken.

It was so quiet in the forests surrounding Arkham. On a bright, sunny day like today, at least the trees did not all have that strange, disorienting sameness to them that Stephen had found so disquieting whenever he had to skirt the edges of the forests in winter or those dismal weeks of early spring, but no amount of dazzling sunlight could disguise how utterly _quiet_ it was in these forests. It wasn’t a simple absence of sound; nothing so simple as that. It was more that any sounds you or anything else could have made were muffled or outright swallowed. The wind never howled as loudly in the forests surrounding Arkham as it did in Arkham itself. Stephen’s voice always sounded too quiet to his own ears, and Herbert sounded as if he was whispering, even when Stephen _knew_ he was speaking at his normal register. Stephen was always overly aware of the volume of his own breathing. He never heard branches snapping or snow tumbling out of branches. He had to strain even to hear dead leaves crunching underfoot.

And Stephen did not think he had ever seen a single animal the entire time he had ever ventured into any forest here. No mice or rabbits, no bobcats or foxes, which he supposed could be partially explained away by these animals being both skittish and relatively small. But he hadn’t seen any deer, either. No raccoons, no possums, no squirrels. Not a single stray cat or dog. He’d not even seen birds or insects, let _alone_ any corpses of any of the above that he and Herbert hadn’t been working on just a few minutes prior.

The absence was of a quality such that Stephen rarely noticed it when he was in a forest itself. He had to force himself to think of how strange it was that he had never seen a single animal in the woods surrounding Arkham, not once since he had come to live here, a little over two years ago. It wasn’t natural. Stephen had never found it in himself to ask, but he knew it wasn’t natural.

Yes, Stephen thought he could understand why the woods were so widely-avoided, even on days like today when they were touched by fleeting beauty.

Herbert shrugged diffidently. “There’s always a first time. Impetuous children trying to prove their bravery to their friends, or parents heading out trying to _find_ those children.” Another faint smile, this one even warmer than the last, or so it felt to someone who questioned whether or not there was even anyone else who had the pleasure of being smiled at thus. “You found the house. I’d hate for that to come to naught because some nosy brat couldn’t leave well enough alone.” His expression darkened slightly. “Or drank something they found sitting out on a table in a house they thought to be abandoned and poisoned themselves.”

Stephen winced. “Yeah, let’s try to avoid that.”

Picking their narrow, careful way through the trees, it was about an hour from Arkham to the Chapman house; Stephen supposed there might have been a quicker route, but if there was one, he had never found it. It was, even on a day like this, something that eventually grew tedious, especially since the path took them through a fair number of tight spots (Stephen was already looking upon the return trip, bags full of delicate equipment, with about the same level of enthusiasm with which he regarded a hangover). Honestly, it had become tedious on the first occasion Stephen had had to make his way back to Arkham after finding the house in the first place, and considering he’d also been grappling with the worry of whether or not he would even be able to find his way back into town before dark or _at all_ , that was an achievement. Not an achievement Stephen was particularly glad to call his own, but it _was_ an achievement.

Stephen wasn’t the only one who found it tedious. He had often seen Herbert’s pale, delicate face twist in something that was not quite annoyance when they had to make their way to or from the Chapman house in anything short of conditions like the ones they enjoyed today, though the not-quite-annoyance quickly turned to a twisting scowl of aggravation when they had to go out into the rain after a sudden rainstorm descended upon the woods, _especially_ if neither of them had thought to bring an umbrella with them on that particular excursion. Now, with Herbert leading the way through the woods, Stephen rarely got a good look at his face, but he did get the occasional glimpse when the path took a sharp turn, and he could see Herbert’s jaw tightening slightly, bone and muscle working behind smooth skin. The urge to smooth down that skin, to try and soothe some of the borderline-annoyance out of Herbert’s body and mind worked hard on Stephen, and it was difficult sometimes to remember all of the reasons why he shouldn’t.

“Are you going home for Christmas this year as well?” Herbert asked him suddenly, pausing a moment and resting his hand on the knotted trunk of an old oak tree.

A little thrown by the question, Stephen raised an eyebrow and replied, “It’s still September, you know.”

“Yes, but it will be October, soon, and I imagine there’s quite a lot of planning that goes into going to stay with someone for weeks on end.” Sometimes, Stephen wondered about Herbert’s upbringing, that that was purely a hypothetical to him, or else that he was endlessly talking around the subject. “Are you planning on returning home for Christmas this year?” he asked again, staring up at Stephen with a long, steady expression that Stephen couldn’t quite interpret on his face.

As it happened, Stephen hadn’t yet made plans regarding the Christmas holiday, but he thought it would be better to be honest. “My parents would be beside themselves if I _didn’t_ come home. And… and I do miss my home, you know.”

“I wouldn’t know, actually,” Herbert murmured, though without any heat in his voice, it sounded more as if he’d not intended Stephen to hear it at all.

Regardless of whether Herbert had intended for Stephen to hear it, his supple mouth was still twisting downwards in the faint, half-there bitterness Stephen had seen overtake him sometimes when he fell into one of his more discontentedly pensive moods. If allowed to peak, Herbert could remain in such a mood for the rest of the afternoon, and it was something Stephen would personally rather avoid. Herbert wouldn’t be much for companionship if he spent the rest of the day sunk in gloomy silence, but there was more to it than that. He just… He did not like to see Herbert sunk into such a mood. His attempts to draw him out of them met with mixed results at best, but still, he could try.

“Are you going to do anything this year?” Stephen asked him, half-attempting just to bring something of interest that wasn’t what had put that bitter twist in Herbert’s mouth, though there was a healthy amount of genuine curiosity in the question. Herbert had done nothing the past two Decembers, just stayed in Arkham over the winter break between terms. Third time lucky, perhaps, and he would finally get out of town for a few weeks?

Herbert quirked an eyebrow. “It’s still September,” he echoed, only the barest hint of irony slipping into his soft voice.

“ _Yes_ …” Stephen had to fight to keep a slightly incredulous smile from creeping over his lips. “But it’s not so early that you wouldn’t even have an _idea_ of what you were planning to do.”

As Herbert tilted his head to one side, sunlight caught on his hair, turning pale blond to gold, before a cloud passed over the sun or the branches above shifted in the wind and the light was gone. “I don’t need to plan; I know. I’m staying here.”

“You sound pretty certain about that.”

Herbert shrugged. “There’s nowhere else I would be going.” He looked around himself and sighed heavily. “There’s only here.”

Yes, there was only here, at least for Herbert, at least provided that there wasn’t anything about the great deal regarding his own past that Herbert had not shared with Stephen that would put the lie to such a claim. But there were times, when Stephen had had a little to drink or he’d gone too long without sleep or the air was just very still and Herbert was unaware of his looking at him reading or writing or measuring chemicals, when he entertained different ideas entirely.

He’d daydreamed sometimes of convincing Herbert to come back to Chicago with him for Christmas. It felt a little like those old fairy tales of a knight rescuing a damsel from a tall tower, though in this scenario, Stephen had no idea how to wield a sword or a lance, there was no dragon to fight, and Herbert most _certainly_ would not have appreciated being compared to anything as passive as a damsel. But the idea of just getting Herbert out of hushed, dismal, foreboding Arkham for a few weeks, bringing him somewhere Stephen thought he might actually _enjoy_ himself, that was appealing. And there was an appeal as well, an undeniable appeal that had been only growing stronger, of cultivating their relationship in a setting that had nothing to do with their studies at the university, that had nothing to do with their research into the reanimation of the dead. There was a part of Stephen, strong and growing stronger, that wanted to know Herbert outside of those contexts.

But it was all impossible. Even if Stephen could persuade Herbert to come away with him for a few weeks, even if Herbert had that sort of money (and to be fair, he probably did, considering that money had never been a problem for him when they had to stay the night in Boston), he would still have to explain to his parents and the rest of his family why he had brought Herbert along with him back to Chicago. How was he ever to explain that? Christmas was a time for family, and he had just brought his classmate along with him because… why, exactly?

There was no way Stephen could explain that without either lying, and giving his parents an impression that he would rather avoid, or tell the truth, and wind up revealing far more than he wished to to his parents. And that wasn’t even getting into what Herbert would think of the request in the first place…

It was all impossible. It was a fantasy. But a pleasant fantasy, nonetheless.

“Well, I hope you find your family well,” Herbert said to him, summoning a small, twitching smile that did not quite meet his eyes, and they kept on down the path.

The path was long and winding, their passage through it slow and laborious and often tedious, but eventually, it did have to come to an end. All paths came to an end, even in such strange and silent and foreboding forests such as the one Stephen was walking through now, thank God.

It was with a relieved smile that Stephen saw the trees drop away to reveal Meadow Hill, tall and proud and still grassy despite the time of year and the nightly chill, though the grass was starting to turn an off-color golden brown. But there was… Stephen stopped, his smile giving way to a bemused frown. There was something different, this time. Stephen saw no one standing on the hill, staring back down at them. He saw no new trees growing up out of the grass, no bushes or boulders that hadn’t been there the last time he had come this way. But on the crown of the tall hill, he saw something he’d not seen there before. He saw something pink swaying gently in the wind. He saw a _lot_ of pink somethings, actually.

“You know,” Stephen said, still frowning up at the crown of the hill, “I don’t remember flowers growing here last fall.”

Herbert shrugged. “Some bulbs can go years in dormancy. Also, autumn was quite short last year. I think by this time we were getting quite bad frost overnight. It might have killed off the shoots before they could really bloom. Come on. The day won’t keep.”

Sure enough, it was flowers. And not just on the crown of the hill.

This time, Herbert stopped and stared at the sight before them as well, mouth slightly open in obvious disbelief.

The Chapman house was set some fifty feet back from the far side of Meadow Hill. The trees encroached close around the back of the house. Very close, in fact, and sometimes Stephen wondered at Herbert calling it a farmhouse, for Stephen didn’t really understand what could have been farmed here, with relatively little open land surrounding the house. The Chapman house had clearly been long-abandoned, but it was equally clear that the trees at the edges of the clearing around the house and the hill had been there for longer than the house itself—at least, such was clear to Stephen.

They had come to the crown of the hill, where they came upon the border of the patch of flowers. But the flowers just went on and on and _on_. All the way down the hill, stretching out onto level ground, only stopping about five feet from the front door of the house, they just carpeted the ground, pink blooms on long, slender stalks, hundreds if not _thousands_ of them, clustered so thickly that not even the weeds could sprout up between them. The air was sweet with their fragrance, a piercing scent that stuck to the roof of Stephen’s mouth and left him a little light-headed until he took a deep breath to steady himself.

The front and the sides of the house were covered in yellow pollen, so thick that if Stephen didn’t know better, he would have sworn someone had come along and given the house a fresh, if highly sloppy, coat of paint. The rest of the surrounding area wasn’t exactly free of it, either. The trees had a noticeable dusting of yellow pollen, and there were motes swirling in the air as if they were trapped in water. Stephen couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen flowers put off so much pollen, especially not in fall. The closest comparison he could think of was all of the pine trees in spring, and even that was had to bow out when held up against this.

“I’ve never seen flowers like this before.” Curiosity pushed itself straight to the forefront of Herbert’s mind as he set his empty bag down on the ground and crouched down in the flower patch, just off of the crown of the hill. He pored over an especially large specimen, gently slipping his fingers under the petals. “They look a little like orchids, don’t you think?”

Stephen regarded the flower Herbert was holding with a critical eye. The bloom was a pale pink, spotted a darker red close to the center. They did look a little like a species of orchid he had seen in a botanical garden, once, though the flowers were a little larger, the petals had sharper points, and the stamens and pistils were more pronounced. “I didn’t think orchids grew here,” he admitted. “Don’t they need warmer climates than _this_?”

Herbert shrugged, still poring over the flower. “That depends a lot on the species, I suppose.” He sprang back up to his feet, brushing pollen from his coat with a small tsking noise in the back of his throat. “We can take some back with us into town if you’re interested; someone at the university would probably know. But really, we do have to be getting to work. I don’t think—Stephen?” he asked suddenly, frowning up into his face, a question gleaming in his eyes.

It was several moments before Stephen could find it in himself to respond. He stared at Herbert, drinking in the sight of him, mouth suddenly gone dry.

The sun shone bright and dazzling down upon them, the wind had been wreaking havoc the whole time, and the motes of pollen floating in the air around them twinkled like little stars brought down to earth. It was… Herbert wasn’t difficult to look at, or at least Stephen didn’t think so. His typically white cheeks were chafed pink by the wind, pink lips chafed red, his pale blond hair rather mussed, brought nearly to curling and looking gold in the light once more. The bright light brought out the color of his eyes nicely; whereas in a lecture hall or the room he lived in in Mrs. Caldwell’s house in Arkham, his eyes were pale and watery, here they had taken on the color of topaz, but more human, less remote. The wind cut across the field of flowers and Herbert’s hands fluttered up to the front of his coat, his clever fingers holding it closed as he winced. It was…

It was the sort of situation in which it was aggravating to remember all the reasons why he shouldn’t touch him.

Stephen was being ridiculous. He was being ridiculous, and running the serious risk of revealing more than he intended. He pinned a smile to his mouth, one he knew couldn’t look quite genuine but would hopefully still serve. “Sorry.” He swallowed. His breaths echoed so loudly in his ears he was surprised not to hear them rattle in his bones. “Just… Just a little tired.”

Herbert nodded silently, but as they made their way down to the house, he kept sneaking glances back at Stephen, following steadily after him.

-0-0-0-

It was ridiculous to expect Stephen to stay in Arkham when he didn’t have classes keeping him here. Who, _who_ among their classmates wished to spend any time in Arkham if they had no reason to currently be in Arkham and had somewhere else they could feasibly go? Herbert could count on both hands the number of students in the medical school whose names he even knew whom he could count on spotting around town during the winter break. He thought that only his classmates whose only alternative to Arkham was the likes of _Innsmouth_ regarded Arkham as an attractive place to stay when they did not have a specific reason to stay there.

Herbert really did not have another option, himself. Of his family still living, he was not really on speaking terms with most (an arrangement very much to Herbert’s liking, considering the sorts of things that had gone on when he was in the custody of those relatives), and there were only a select few whom he thought would have acknowledged him if they passed each other on the street—and Herbert exerted more than a slight amount of effort to avoid being in the parts of town at the times of day when he would have been likely to come across one of them, and had been more than happy not to tell them which boarding house he was staying in while he attended university. There was one who might… But they’d not exchanged letters in a few years, now, and on top of not knowing what sort of welcome a request to stay over would have received, Herbert did not know if he would be able to keep his temper from fraying while he stayed with her. It was the sort of loss of control he preferred to _avoid_ , honestly, and thus, Herbert made no attempt to reestablish contact. (There was a part of him, more than a small part, which was waiting for _her_ to establish contact. She was older, she was older, it ought to have been her responsibility. From her, there had been nothing. But that was just like her. When she was around, she was happy to insert herself into things she’d not been asked to involve herself in. When she did not have to be around, she was happy not to look, not to involve herself at all.)

Options being limited to only one realistic one, Herbert stayed in Arkham even when he did not have classes keeping him there. It was not an attractive place to stay the winter; even the people who lived there and had lived there their whole lives did not seem to have much fondness for their home in winter. (Not that anyone with sense held much fondness for Arkham even when the weather was fair.) Anyone who had somewhere else to go ought to _go_ there, and enjoy the time they could spend away from Arkham, as gloomy and as haunted as it was.

Herbert really ought to be glad that Stephen seemed so confident that he would be going home to his family once the semester had concluded. He ought to be glad that Stephen had somewhere he could go that was not Arkham, that he enjoyed the sort of relationship with his family where, even months prior to the event, he could speak with complete confidence on the topic of their wanting his company over the holiday. Who wanted to stay in Arkham? Stephen was an outsider. His caution was not always what it should be, and Herbert supposed that was at least partially his own fault, considering that he could never decide what the best way of going about educating himself on the _peculiarities_ of the valley would be. But whoever’s fault it was, Stephen’s caution was not always what it should be, and if he had somewhere he could go to get out of the valley for a few weeks, Herbert ought to be grateful for that. It wasn’t realistic to expect them to be able to be together when they had nothing _keeping_ them together. Herbert couldn’t always be watching out for pitfalls. If Stephen had somewhere else he could go, he ought to go there, and Herbert ought to be happy, even relieved, to see him off.

But he could never summon any happiness at the thought of it, let alone something like _relief_. When Stephen got on the train connecting Arkham to Boston, Herbert always found himself grappling with the fear that he might just not come back. That he might decide that the Miskatonic Valley was too strange and too sinister for his liking, and that he wanted to complete his education somewhere he could actually move around at night freely. That he might decide that their shared research wasn’t worth sticking around for, that _Herbert_ wasn’t worth sticking around for. And even when Stephen spoke in such a way as to reassure him of his eventual return, he still couldn’t even _try_ to be happy to watch him go.

Herbert made a harsh, scolding noise in the back of his throat as he took out the key to the lock they’d fitted to the front door of the Chapman house. The last couple of years before he entered the university, he would have given anything to be able to spend the Christmas holiday by himself, away from anyone and everyone’s company, and now look at him. It was ridiculous. He was being ridiculous.

He was being ridiculous _and_ selfish, actually, since Herbert didn’t even have the excuse of their research into reanimation to keep Stephen in Arkham during the depths of winter, not really. Even if the few weeks in between semesters were enough for them to make a breakthrough on something suitable for human corpses, the ground would be frozen _solid_ in those December and January weeks. They might have a formula for a serum that would actually _do_ something to a human corpse, but there was no way they could even think of risking an excursion into the potter’s field. They could get in there just after sunset, and they’d still be chipping away at the frozen earth come dawn, with the caretaker and a couple of policemen breathing down their necks. It was completely useless. Herbert had no reason to keep Stephen in Arkham over the Christmas holiday.

Ridiculous and selfish, and yet there were times when Herbert wanted—

The key turned in the lock with a sharp, labored click. Herbert gritted his teeth, glad that he was standing close enough to the door that Stephen had no hope of catching sigh of his face. It did not matter what he wanted. There were things he must do, and everything else was unimportant. It did not matter what he wanted.

The Chapman house had been around a long time; that much had been obvious to Herbert since first he laid eyes upon it. For all its age, it was a sturdily-built house, and though Herbert had more than a few reservations regarding what the cold of winter might do to the equipment they kept inside, heat and cold were the only problems Herbert and Stephen had ever had with the elements, for as long as they had used the abandoned farmhouse as a laboratory. All told, Herbert thought they had been quite lucky with the house, and while he might have scolded Stephen a bit for going out into the woods on his own to look for it, he’d never regretted the find of the house itself. They’d not had a single problem with mold or detritus getting into the house since they started making use of it.

So it came as something of a shock when Herbert pulled the front door open, and a cloud of yellow pollen puffed out like smoke blown from a fire, causing them both to stop short and cough.

“I don’t suppose,” Stephen managed after spluttering a good few seconds, still wheezing slightly, “that you spotted a new hole in the roof on our way down?”

“No,” Herbert confirmed. The world had come to be comprised wholly of yellow motes that glittered in the sunlight like stars, a sight that would have been pretty if not for the fact that Herbert actually had things he needed to do today, and needed to be able to see clearly even if he _wasn’t_ doing anything. Herbert rooted around in his pockets until he finally found a handkerchief, and after wiping the pollen from his spectacles and his face as best he could, went on, “It might have come in through under the doors, or the cracks in between the windows and the sills.” Herbert clicked his tongue. An old, sturdily-built house, but not one built on the behalf of anyone with particularly a lot of money. And maybe age had had more of an impact than Herbert could see.

“Or the chimney,” Stephen suggested, beating one last cough out of his chest with his fist.

“Or the chimney,” Herbert conceded. “But all it means is that we’ll have to wipe everything down before packing it up. Come inside, and let’s get started.”

The moment Herbert stepped over the threshold into the house, dark in spite of the afternoon sunlight thanks to dark curtains that, whatever else might have occurred, were still hanging securely from their rods, he was hit with an odor so powerful that it felt like a walking into a brick wall. He reeled, coughing once more, bringing his hand to his mouth and glancing frantically at the walls. The smell was thickly, almost sickeningly sweet, and at first Herbert, his head starting to swim, feared it to be mildew, but after a moment’s contemplation of the smell, he heaved a sigh of relief. Not mildew at all; he could discern none of the creeping undertones of rot. Instead, the odor seemed more like the perfume put off by the strange flowers growing outside, though it was considerably stronger, more concentrated, a piercing, heady scent that only made Herbert’s head swim more the longer he was exposed to it.

“You’d think someone sprayed a whole vat of perfume in here,” Stephen muttered somewhere off behind him.

In response to that, Herbert could only nod.

Though the smell emanating throughout the house was making Herbert feel a little dizzy, though it made his skin prickle as if someone was running their fingertips lightly down his hands, his face, his neck— _that_ was a strange thought to consider, one that made Herbert’s heart pulse slightly out of beat in his chest, and try as he might, he could not quite banish it from his mind—he could not let it stop him. Neither of them could; the consequences of the laboratory being discovered were not ones which Herbert cared to contemplate.

It was always at least a few degrees warmer in the Chapman house than it was outside, and today was no exception. Finding it warm enough that he did not really need his coat, Herbert hung it up on a rusty metal hook by the door, and then joined Stephen in the task of opening all of the curtains in the main room and the little side room where they kept much of the more delicate equipment.

Sunlight pierced the main room of the Chapman house, illuminating the old, disused fireplace, the old, worn floorboards over the hard-packed soil beneath, the rickety tables upon which the less delicate equipment was kept, the thin little cot pressed up under one of the windows overlooking the newly-sprung up flower meadow outside. The sunlight could account for a great deal, but it could not quite account for the yellow haze that now lightly tinted everything in the main room of the house.

The equipment, as Herbert had thought it would be, was dusted with pollen. So too were the tables on which they sat. The curtains, which were a particularly dense shade of navy blue (Herbert had wanted black curtains, but Stephen had sensibly pointed out that the only way they were getting black curtains was if they dyed them black themselves), now looked like they were patterned with some sort of golden-yellow floral design, though it would have been impossible to put a name to the flower without the expertise of someone capable of reconstructing a flower completely torn to pieces. The thin mattress, sheet, and pillow on the cot were all white, but you would never have known if you were just now looking at them for the first time. And in the still air there swirled yet more of the motes of pollen, dancing lazily in the shafts of light piercing the warped glass of the windows like diurnal fireflies out of season.

Once the curtains had been pulled back, the temperature in the house subtly, but noticeably crept upwards, reaching up to where it could embrace an idea of heat. Not yet warm enough that Herbert could feel sweat beading on his brow or dribbling under his clothes, though he thought that by the time he was done with his work in here, it might be.

Herbert didn’t even know how it was possible, but the heady-sweet scent that wasn’t quite the perfume of the flowers outside became even stronger. It felt a little like… You know, Herbert had never liked wine. Just based on the color, he expected it to be sweet, but whenever he had tried to drink wine, he had found it so incredibly, disgustingly bitter that he could not drink more than a sip of it before he started to gag. It was the same with every other variation of alcohol he had ever tried. Herbert had never liked wine, but breathing in the air in the house was a little like the way he had expected drinking wine to be like. He only hoped that he would not get drunk off of it, though standing there, head swimming, feeling a little like he was swaying or else that the world was, Herbert could not say with confidence that he wasn’t a little drunk already.

Whatever else he might be feeling, he did have a job to do here, and he had only just begun. Drawing in a deep breath and, when that thoroughly failed to leave him any steadier than before, just set his jaw and headed towards the side room.

They had left the door open the last time they were here—the exterior doors had locks that could only be opened with a key that Herbert kept in a box in his room in the Caldwell house when he didn’t have need of it, but there was really no point with the interior doors—and Herbert expected to find the room coated with pollen when he strode over to the window to thrust open the curtains.

That, he did. There was not quite as much in this room as there was in the main room, but there was definitely a light yellow coating of pollen over much of the surfaces in the room. There was something else here that he had thought he might find, though Herbert had _dearly_ hoped he wouldn’t.

“Oh!” he snarled harshly as his eyes lit on the large beaker sitting out on the table in the center of the room, anger suddenly scalding in his chest, and if it was directed at no one but himself, it was all the more scalding for it.

“Herbert?” Stephen called out to him from the other room, voice injected deep with uncertainty, but Herbert did not answer him. Herbert’s attention was riveted entirely on the beaker.

Sure enough, he had forgotten to pour out the serum they had mixed up the last time they were here, just leaving it out for anyone willing to pick a lock or break a window to find. Herbert strode over to the table, resting his lightly shaking hands on the wood. He blinked as he looked down into the beaker itself, for though the beaker did not seem to have been disturbed, there was something markedly different about it.

The serum, when mixed, had been clear. You could argue that there was perhaps a silvery sheen to it when it was held up to the light, but by and large, it had been clear. It was not clear anymore. It was not even silver.

Clustered around the lip of the beaker were clumps of pollen, larger and thicker than any other specimens Herbert had seen. The serum within had turned colors, and what Herbert looked down upon now was a deep, deep reddish-pink, a color that might have recalled blood had it been just a little darker and the consistency been just a little different, though as it was, Herbert could tell at a bare glance that it was _certainly_ not blood.

Anger still raced under the surface of his skin like a fever, though it had taken second place to Herbert’s curiosity regarding the serum, and just how it had ended up that way in the first place, and what other changes the change in color might allude to. Frowning intently, Herbert reached for the pollen-coated beaker, intending to hold it up to the light to get a better look.

The reddish-pink color of the altered serum had disguised the amount of pollen on the beaker. And gripped by curiosity as he was, Herbert had not been thinking even a little bit about the by how the texture of the pollen might affect his grip.

Barely five seconds after Herbert had picked up the beaker, it slipped in his grasp, falling back to the table with a slosh and a clink and a few choice profanities. Some of the altered serum splashed onto the back of Herbert’s left hand and his sleeve cuff, stinging ever so slightly as it made contact with his exposed skin. Herbert hissed through his teeth as he regarded his now stained cuff, imagining just what he’d have to do to it to get the stain _out_. He pulled his handkerchief, already streaked with pollen, from his pocket, scrubbing his hand clean.

“Are you alright?”

Herbert jumped when he realized that Stephen was standing at his side. Transfixed upon the beaker and the contents and then part of those contents getting on his hand, he’d not heard Stephen hurrying towards him until his worried, slightly breathless voice sounded close by him. He glanced up at Stephen, only to find Stephen staring down at him, eyes darting frantically over his face as if he expected to find a cut or a bruise or blood. Herbert quickly averted his gaze, feeling his face grow warm. “I’m fine,” he muttered. “Just spilled some of _that_ —“ his voice hardened to something close to a snarl as he nodded at the beaker “—on my hand.”

And Herbert jolted once more when Stephen responded to that by reaching out and snatching up Herbert’s hand in his own, much larger one. “What…” There was a strange, quivering tremor in Herbert’s throat, crawling up his voice and rendering his voice far weaker than he had expected. “What are you doing?”

“I just want to make sure it hasn’t done anything to your skin,” Stephen replied distractedly, lifting Herbert’s hand up to the light. “We’ve never actually gotten the serum on our skin, before; not sure what it would do.”

“Nothing, I imagine,” Herbert retorted, his voice still sounding a little faint to his own ears. “But the serum’s looking rather different than it did than we left it.”

Stephen ignored his attempt at a dismissal until he was satisfied that there had been no adverse reaction, but once he was done with that, he did indeed take a look at the beaker full of the altered serum, eyes widening slightly as he looked it over. “That’s… Yeah, that’s looking weird.” He craned his neck, leaning over the table until he was nearly staring directly down into the beaker. Not typical laboratory safety etiquette, but then, this wasn’t a typical laboratory, and Herbert felt too unsettled to admonish him. “I can’t think of any reason why the materials we mixed would have turned this color after being left out for a while, can you?”

“Hmm,” was about all that Herbert could manage.

Stephen was still holding onto his hand. They both sat on the table, now, Herbert’s hand curled into the palm of Stephen’s, almost completely engulfed. As Stephen put out a couple of conjectures, he rubbed his thumb absently across Herbert’s knuckles, stroking slowly, gently up and down. Herbert wasn’t certain Stephen even realized that he was doing it, but Herbert… Herbert bit back an oddly strangled breath. It was just about all that Herbert could focus on.

He had watched Stephen’s hands at work countless times. Stephen was a tall man, with the large hands you would expect from someone of his height, flesh clear of scars or knots, fingernails firm and healthily pink, grip strong. Herbert had had a few occasions to learn how strong Stephen’s grip was, normally when Stephen dragged him away from an attempt at reanimating an animal gone wrong before that freshly-living and tremendously furious animal could claw Herbert’s face from his skull. One hand would clamp down on Herbert’s elbow, the other arm looping around his waist as he hauled him away from the table, and Herbert always forgot just how strong Stephen was until he was hefting Herbert off of the ground with seemingly no effort at all. It ought to have been infuriating to be handled like a ragdoll, but instead, though Herbert quickly bit down on any betraying reaction, he found it bizarrely pleasant, instead. He always felt a sharp spike of disappointment when Stephen finally took his hands away.

There was strength there. (Sometimes, Herbert wondered just how much.) There was something else, too. Herbert had watched Stephen’s hands at work, and he had always been struck by just how dexterous his hands were. You didn’t expect it from a tall man with such large hands, but he had such deft, steady hands, hands that Herbert had not watched stumble on a syringe or a scalpel or any other tool since their first semester at the university, and even then, not very often. Such thoughts did Herbert entertain regarding those hands, thoughts he rarely allowed to progress past phantom sensations or half-formed imaginings.

It was safer that way, safer not to let anything become fully-formed in his mind. It did not matter what he wanted, and it _certainly_ did not matter what he wanted when—

He was… He was _trying_ not to let those imaginings form concrete images in his mind just now. But it was difficult when Stephen still held his hand firmly—gently, too, so gently—in his own, his thumb running a steady, seemingly exploratory track across the back of his knuckles. His skin was warm. Knowing that it was something he should not want did not help, not at all. A strange heat spread slowly up Herbert’s hand, a tingling heat that put a giddy laugh trying to break out of his mouth.

As Herbert contemplated trying to press his fingers between Stephen’s hand and the table, Stephen said something that finally dragged his attention away from their hands. “I guess the pollen must have gotten into it, too. It’s a strange interaction; can’t imagine what about it would have made the serum change color like that.”

Stephen was peering into Herbert’s face, suddenly, and Herbert stuttered slightly, swallowing hard and praying his thoughts were not as obviously etched into his skin as he feared they must be. “I…” Well, if his face didn’t give him away, his slightly cracked voice certainly would, if _anything_ was. “I suppose so. I mean…” Slipping into the tones of a lecturer might be safer. He would try that. “I mean, it’s not as if exposure to light could have altered any of the properties of the serum, considering there was no light for it to be exposed to. Changes in temperature could be responsible, but I’ve never seen any of our prior formulae change colors after exposure to heat or cold. I think you may be right.” He tried to smile, and immediately regretted it, for his smile felt false and faltering on his lips. “The pollen seems the only likely culprit.”

For a long moment, they looked into each other’s faces, the still, sweet air pressing in on Herbert, urging him to lean closer. But then, a small smile quirked on Stephen’s lips, and the spell was broken. Stephen relinquished his grip on Herbert’s hand, drawing it back towards himself. A small, protesting whine sprang into Herbert’s mouth as contact was broken, a noise he barely managed to bite down on, and which made his heart hammer more than the sudden contact could have hoped to accomplish.

“I’ll go clean this out,” Stephen told him, picking up the beaker and carrying it out of the room with a quick “Won’t take too long!” tossed off of his shoulder as he left.

Herbert listened to the retreat of footsteps, until he heard the front door swing open and then shut again. At last, he drew a breath, not expecting it to steady him, and not being disappointed when breathing in the heady scent thick in the air only made his legs feel for a moment as if they might collapse beneath him, sending him toppling to the floor. He braced his hands on the table until he was confident that he could walk away steadily, back straight and head held level, and then, he got to work.

There was much to do, and only _more_ to do thanks to all of the pollen that now needed to be cleaned off of everything being packed away, as well as a fair few things that _didn’t_ need to be packed away. Herbert had stuffed a few cleaning rags into the bag he had taken with him to the Chapman house. Though they had been intended to clean up equipment rendered dirty by, say, the elements managing to get into the house through a broken window, they would serve just as well to dust the pollen off of the various beakers and test tubes and bookstands and the pestle and mortar and everything else that needed to be packed away.

Herbert only managed to wipe down one of the larger beakers before finding that the cleaning rag he had been using was completely soiled with streaks of yellow pollen. He clicked his tongue and found himself, of all things, blowing into the test tubes to get the pollen coating the interiors out of them. They had brought canteens with them, of course, but Herbert would rather keep those for their intended use and not risk either of the two of them becoming dehydrated when they had such a long walk ahead of them to get back to Arkham. There was the well, Herbert supposed, but he _also_ supposed that if he went to inspect it, he’d find swirls of yellow glistening in the water like snakes flitting about in depths of the well. Dirty water would not help them.

As he had thought (though he was not particularly well-pleased to be proven correct), Herbert had not grown any more accustomed to the potent scent in the air over time. Breathing it in still invited the giddy dizziness of drinking wine, or at least what Herbert thought drinking enough wine to get drunk felt like. The feeling had returned, that strange, oddly enticing idea that struck him whenever he moved, and the still air shifted around him. It felt as if his bare skin was being touched by unseen hands, as if there were fingers gently exploring his hands and his neck and face. Whenever he blinked, he expected to open his eyes and see those hands he’d not been able to see the last time his eyes were open. He felt as if—

“Here’s the beaker back,” Stephen murmured, his voice sounding suddenly very close to Herbert’s ear.

Herbert jumped, but there was nowhere to go. Stephen was reaching over him to place the beaker back on the table with his right hand, and he had put his left hand on the table for balance or for some other reason, though Herbert’s mind was skating over any possible reason as to why. It took a moment for Herbert to realize it, but Stephen was standing so close behind him that his breath made Herbert’s hair rustle.

When Herbert could find something to say that would not have come out as some garbled mess, it was to ask, “Any trouble?” in a brittle voice that sounded fit to break into something that Herbert did not think he would have recognized, something he feared Stephen _would_.

“None.”

He was still standing right there, so close that Herbert began to realize that he could actually feel Stephen’s breath on his _skin_ , hot and steady and all too welcoming. Herbert felt as if suspended, unable to move forward, for the table would have barred his way, and he could not have moved back, because moving back involved moving into flesh, a warm body that might have pushed him away or might have welcomed him, and Herbert could not decide which notion it was that put into him that feeling once again as if the world was tilting on its axis.

Herbert really ought to ask him or just _tell_ him to back away. Make up some pretext about needing to move to another part of their little laboratory, or back into the main room. The part of his mind that counseled such did speak to him, but in a quiet voice that was easy to overlook in the face of the uneasy pleasure of proximity.

“Did you…” He had no will to push Stephen away, but he had to say _something_ , had to find something to say to break the oddly charged silence. “Did you notice anything about the serum when you were washing out the beaker?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Herbert could see Stephen shrug his shoulders. “It stung a little bit when I got it on my hands, but that didn’t last long.”

Herbert nodded, saying nothing.

He kept thinking… He kept thinking that Stephen would do something, though he wasn’t certain as to what. But eventually, Stephen cleared his throat loudly, and at last stepped away from where he had trapped Herbert between him and the table.

They cleaned their laboratory equipment in silence, all sounds that might have been making themselves heard outside of the house muffled into nonexistence past the threshold. A silence that might have been companionable instead felt like something that might swallow Herbert whole if he tread anywhere in the direction of its jaws. It was a silence that felt like a third presence in the house, watching them both with interest and intent.

Speaking of watching, Herbert kept finding himself stealing glances at Stephen as he dusted off equipment and put it away in one or the other of their bags. There was nothing wrong with looking at someone, of course, but stealing glances soon turned to furtive staring when Stephen’s attention was firmly directed elsewhere, and whenever Stephen’s own gaze turned anywhere even remotely in Herbert’s direction while he was staring, he jerked his head away and turned his back to hide the dull flush crawling up his neck.

Stephen was… He was a handsome man. Herbert had been cognizant of it nearly as soon as they had met, once he had been persuaded that the curiosity Stephen expressed in just what it was that Herbert was working on that was gossiped about so much by certain other classmates of theirs was genuine.

( _“I want to help you. I believe you. I think it’s possible. I want to help you, if you’ll let me.”_ Those words were graven on his heart, had burrowed past flesh to a place where nothing had been able to touch it for years, for it had been years since anyone had tried to touch Herbert’s heart, and here had come this man who had reached in and left a dear, indelible impression of himself on Herbert’s heart with just a few, simple words. It frightened him, sometimes, how easy it had been for Stephen to make himself as dear as anyone else had ever been to Herbert, but when they were together, there was no fear at all. Fear only really entered into it when he considered the possibility that Stephen might leave, and then not come back.)

He was a handsome man. Stephen had been gifted with strong, robust health, something that showed itself in his thick, dark hair, in the bright, intelligent gleam in his dark brown eyes, in the healthy shine of his skin and his lips, in the sharp line of his long jaw. He was a handsome man, and there were times, more frequently over the past few months, when Herbert was struck by that as he looked his way.

He wanted—

It was too much to ever ask. Even if Herbert had room in his life for the things that he wanted, even if it was _alright_ to ask such a thing, it would have been too much to ask. Stephen had already given him so much. He had been Herbert’s research partner for nearly two years, now. He had spent so much of his free time, time that he had no doubt wished to spend doing other things, helping Herbert with the work, with the research. He’d followed him to Boston to purchase materials. He had courted the ire of the medical faculty and the derision of their classmates merely by associating with Herbert and refusing to drop him when Herbert became the least-favorite student of every last member of the faculty of the medical school at Miskatonic University. Herbert wasn’t a fool. He knew that the good opinion and the recommendations of the faculty of the college would go a long way for anyone seeking good, comfortable employment once they had gained their medical licenses, and by tying himself to Herbert so thoroughly, Stephen was cutting himself off from the benefits of the faculty’s favor and narrowing his paths forward once they had both graduated and they were licensed to practice medicine outside the faculty’s supervision.

Stephen had given him so much, and to ask this of him, as well, it was just a step too far. Herbert could not expect that of him. Desires were what they were, and Herbert had several years ago decided there was no point in considering a desire unconscionable just because it was something that society considered taboo, but it was ridiculous to expect Stephen to sign over his entire life to Herbert, every last aspect of it, both that which saw the light of day and that which was consigned to the shadows behind closed doors (Oh, even if Herbert was not delicate regarding his own desires just because they were what society would consider taboo, he did remember that society did consider those desires abnormal and condemned them, and the consequences of those desires being exposed to the world at large—Herbert was not a fool). He could not bind Stephen to him in full and expect it to end in any fashion other than disaster.

He did imagine Stephen married, sometimes, a husband and a father, though Herbert was not enamored enough of tormenting himself to try and paint faces onto the shadowy figures he imagined Stephen to be married to and father to. It wasn’t… It wasn’t a line of thought that gave Herbert any joy. Regardless, it was what he thought the most likely course for things to take.

It was too much to ask. It was too much to want. It did not matter what Herbert wanted. He wanted, anyways.

At other intervals, Herbert could feel Stephen looking at him. He could feel Stephen’s eyes boring into his back, lingering on the movements of his hands and arms, sometimes raking over his face. Herbert swallowed hard, trying to push down the hot, hard lump in his throat, trying to breathe normally, trying to resist the urge to look up and stare directly into Stephen’s face.

He had felt Stephen looking at him before. He had noticed Stephen looking at him before. Those times had not been like this time. There was a weight to it, a steady, pulsing weight that made his looks feel like touches—that feeling of the still, sweet-scented air being hands upon his skin had only intensified, but now, Herbert was no longer able to resist those thoughts he had pushed down, and he imagined Stephen’s hands, strong and dexterous and gentle, caressing his face, fingertips fluttering against his eyelids and tracing the lines of his lips, threading into his hair and fitting against his cheeks, warm and tender and he needed to _stop_ imagining it but he didn’t know how, it was all he could think about and eventually Herbert gave up trying to scrub down lab equipment and turned his attention to the cot sitting under one of the windows.

Herbert had no broom with which to beat out the sheet and the mattress and the pillow. It probably would have gone better for him if he did, but there was still something distinctly satisfying about beating the pollen out of the components of the cot, if only because the exertion of it soothed something aching deep inside of his body. (Not for long, though, not for long at all.)

By the time he had gotten as much of the pollen out of the mattress and sheet and pillow of the cot as he thought was likely, Stephen was packing the last of their equipment into the bags, digging into something that Herbert could not see from where he stood. “I think that’s the last of it,” he told Herbert almost absently. “Was there anything left in the other room?”

“N-no,” Herbert almost stammered, getting caught up in how the sunlight gleamed along the edges of Stephen’s form as a sculpture gilded with bright gold. Struggling to inject some strength into his tremulous voice, “I didn’t leave anything in there.”

Stephen looked up and smiles at him, his smile absolutely dizzying, despite the fact that there was nothing materially different about it than any other smile Herbert had ever seen on his lips, directed at him. He said nothing, just looking at Herbert again, that long, steady stare that felt like a touch. Trying not to fixate on it too obviously, Herbert’s gaze drifted downwards slightly, to spot Stephen’s now visibly-crumpled shirt collar.

He sucked in a short, shallow breath, let it out as a sigh of relief at having something to focus on that wasn’t Stephen’s smile or his stare. “Here, let me fix that for you.” Herbert crossed the room in a few purposeful strides, setting his hands to Stephen’s shirt collar. “It wouldn’t do for you to be seen in Arkham like that; people would wonder what you had been getting up to.”

A low, throaty laugh rumbled in Stephen’s chest, reverberating in Herbert’s hands as he worked on Stephen’s shirt collar. “No, we couldn’t have that.”

Herbert bit his lip as he tried to smooth Stephen’s shirt collar down to some semblance of tidiness. He couldn’t do the job as well as a hot iron would have done, but he could at least _try_.

Soon, his purposes began to… to _shift_. Almost of their own accord, Herbert’s hands drifted up slightly, so that while they were still working on Stephen’s shirt collar, his fingers brushed against skin as he worked on the linen collar. Stephen’s skin was warm on Herbert’s hands, and it was a struggle not to abandon the pretense of working on Stephen’s collar completely and just run his hands up and down Stephen’s neck, tracing the progress of veins and arteries.

Herbert jumped slightly when he felt Stephen’s arm slide around his waist, his hand settling on Herbert’s thigh. “Stephen, what are you—“

But his voice petered out into nothing, bitten off in horror as he felt his cock twitch, and then begin slowly to grow hard. Herbert crushed Stephen’s shirt collar in his hands as he ducked his head, clamping his mouth shut on a mortified whimper when his eyes immediately picked out a visible bulge in the front of his trousers. He sucked in a ragged breath, desperately willing the beginnings of his erection to go back down, but flesh was flesh and flesh was heedless of anything but physical sensation, and Stephen’s arm around his waist felt _so_ good, and oh, _God_ , there was no way Stephen wouldn’t notice, and, and, and…

And Stephen’s other hand slid under Herbert’s chin, cupping his jaw gently, but still firmly, the touch of a man who had no intention of letting go until his purpose in doing so had been fulfilled.

Herbert’s head spun, the sickly-sweet scent in the air pressing into every pore of his skin, trying to settle into his body. Stephen’s hand was shifting, urging his chin up—again, gently, so gently, but with an insistence Herbert would never have been able to mistake. Herbert squeezed his eyes shut as his head was slowly tipped up, biting back a sob the likes of which he’d not felt try to push past his mouth since he was maybe thirteen and puberty was still wreaking the worst of its havoc on his body. The best he could hope for was that Stephen just, just wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t hold it against him, that they could just try to behave as if this had never happened, but _Herbert_ would never forget it, would honestly be surprised if he was ever able to look Stephen in the eye again.

Then, Stephen kissed him. Herbert’s eyes fluttered open, and he froze.

It was just a gentle, almost hesitant press of lips against his own, with scarcely any pressure behind it, lasting maybe five seconds before Stephen drew back from his mouth. But it made the world as Herbert had known it crack in two, and as the pieces fell away, he was left in territory completely foreign to him.

They stared at each other in frank surprise, Herbert’s heart hammering in his throat, his lips tingling. Stephen’s eyes darted over his face, his jaw tightening as if he expected a rejection, as if he had somehow managed not to notice that his touch was enough to make Herbert hard, as if he had somehow managed not to notice that every fiber of his body was practically _vibrating_ in anticipation of more.

Such an intelligent man, but he could be so _clueless_.

Herbert’s hands shot up to Stephen’s face, yanking his head down, and when he kissed him, heedless of the startled noise that jarred from Stephen’s lips and disappeared into Herbert’s mouth, there was no hesitation to be found.

As startled as he might have been, Stephen reacted quickly. The arm he had snaked around Herbert’s waist tightened considerably, the other wrapping just as tightly around his shoulders. He pressed eagerly against Herbert’s mouth, just as he pressed Herbert’s body flush against his own, so tight that Herbert could feel Stephen’s heartbeat through their clothes, and bent Herbert so far back at the waist that his feet nearly left the ground, leaving him scrambling to clutch at Stephen’s back and upper arm for some sort of purchase.

There was a small, barely-present part of Herbert’s mind that thought he ought to be embarrassed by how quickly he had just completely melted into Stephen’s embrace. But he could only revel in the sensation, pleasure pooling in his belly, and the only thing that could even momentarily draw his attention away from sensation was the realization of something hard digging into his abdomen, and once he realized what that was, he had to bite back a laugh, giddy and relieved and high-pitched with mingled terror and needy anticipation.

They were both gasping by the time their mouths broke contact, and Stephen set him back more firmly on his feet. It was impossible to catch your breath in here with the air so thick with the not-quite perfume of the flowers blooming outside, and every breath of air Herbert sucked in to make up for what he lost just now made his knees feel a little weaker, his head a little hazier, his desire a little stronger.

Stephen stared down into his face once more, no longer with the tightened jaw of someone certain he was about to face a rejection, but still with the sort of uncertainty Herbert thought _entirely_ misplaced. He held a hand out to him, palm upheld and waiting.

Herbert set his hand in Stephen’s, and a relieved smile unfurled on Stephen’s mouth—noticeably reddened, and Herbert could only imagine what his own looked like, just now. He brought Herbert’s hand to his lips—Herbert’s heart fluttered maddeningly—and then began drawing him backwards, away from the table, towards the cot set under the window. Herbert’s heart fluttered again, but this time it was accompanied with a strange, sweet pang of pain in his chest, rattling beneath his ribs so insistently that even when they had reached the cot, there it was, still.

Looping an arm around Herbert’s waist once more, Stephen sat down on the edge of the cot and pulled Herbert down onto his lap, drawing him in close. “What do you want?” he murmured, his lips rasping against Herbert’s cheek.

Herbert did not answer him, did not meet his gaze. That small part of his mind, growing ever smaller, muttered something about how he ought to be embarrassed about being set down on a man’s lap and dandled like a child, but its voice was so faint that Herbert couldn’t even catch the last few syllables, and he did not think he would be hearing from it again. (Good riddance. Herbert did not want to deal with little impulses in the back of his mind telling him he should be embarrassed by what he enjoyed, while he was enjoying it.) He sank his fingernails into Stephen’s jacket sleeves, clutching at his upper arms, hoping his body would speak for him clearly enough to be heard.

A long moment of silence followed, in which Herbert expected to hear the question repeated, or… he did not know what, actually. The possibilities spiraled out from each other, stretching down paths whose terminations Herbert could not see from such a distance. He knew which one would be preferred, but he could not…

Stephen shifted his head, his lips seeking Herbert’s mouth. Herbert shut his eyes, clutching a little tighter at his arms, waiting for the moment when his fingernails sank through the wool of his jacket and the linen of his shirt-sleeves and found skin to clutch against instead. Or Stephen could just take off his jacket, and his vest, and his shirt, and Herbert wouldn’t have to cut through cloth with his blunt fingernails to set his hands against skin. Herbert would prefer that. Herbert would _much_ prefer that.

Hot sunlight pouring down onto them, prickling at Herbert’s skin like something just shy of the prick of a needle, Stephen worked at his mouth, lips pressing and worrying, pushing against him, forcing his head a little further up for a better angle. His hand drifted to Herbert’s face, fingers threading in his hair as it fitted itself against his cheek. A shiver trembled through Herbert’s body at the first tug of teeth against his lower lip, so light that he could easily have never noticed it, until he felt those teeth _pull_. He leaned in a little closer, a smile drawing at the corners of his lips as he let his jaw relax and he let his mouth fall open, just a little.

A startled gasp jarred from Herbert’s mouth as Stephen’s hot, thick tongue surged into his mouth, running slowly along the delicate flesh on the roof. Herbert drew in closer to him, heart hammering in his chest, ready to fall into the heat of his body, bracing himself against the sudden bout of dizziness that felt set to turn his knees to jelly and his spine to water and set him down on the cot, fit for nothing for God only knew how long. He could not do that, he needed to be strong enough to hold on, to touch, to explore, to take pleasure and be given such without falling into an overwhelmed faint.

So warm had been Stephen’s hand on his face that when it slipped away suddenly, Herbert’s skin felt cold, even though the air it was now exposed to once more was just as warm as his skin had been. He could feel that hand close over the hand Herbert had set to his upper arm on that side, slowly, methodically prying it from his sleeve. Confusion sparked in the back of Herbert’s mind as Stephen drew Herbert’s hand down, his large palm pressed slightly sideways to the back of Herbert’s hand, thumb pressed against the base of Herbert’s fingers, only for his whole body to stiffen when Stephen brought their hands to the front of Herbert’s trousers.

It was… It was a light touch, at first, as if Stephen, even though it wasn’t _his_ hand brushing against Herbert’s half-hard cock, couldn’t decide whether or not this was a place where his hand would have been welcome. Herbert… Stephen’s hand was much larger than his own, large enough that even if he had set Herbert’s hand beneath his, the edges of his hand still brushed against cloth. But he wasn’t holding all that tightly. Herbert could easily had extricated his hand from Stephen’s grasp, leaving him to decide what he was going to do and then actually do it _himself_ , with no buffer between himself and that clever, dexterous hand—

Herbert did not draw his hand away. He was curious to see what Stephen would do, and did not want his pulling his hand away to be taken the wrong way.

His… _their_ hands began to move, slowly at first, slowly, lightly, Stephen’s uncertainty plainly expressed in the way he skirted around the edges of the bulge, putting only the barest amount of pressure against the hot flesh underneath. Pleasant, of course, but maddening, when all Herbert wanted was a firmer touch and Stephen’s arm was wrapped too tightly around his waist for him to arch his hips forward into their wound hands. But some bridge was crossed, and past it, Stephen seemed to gain whatever confidence had been lacking before.

Air in their lungs still being a requirement, they broke from the long, wet kiss that had left Herbert feeling like his bones were turning to water, and Herbert set his head on Stephen’s shoulder, biting back the small, breathy noises that twinged and ached in his mouth as his… as _their_ hands pet and stroked and fondled him. Awkward, uneven touching, seemingly more about tracing outlines than anything else turned to long, unhurried strokes that sent sparks of pleasure up and down Herbert’s body that just wound tighter and tighter until he felt like coiled wire, wound so tight it would snap without relief. He buried his face in Stephen’s chest, mumbling incoherently, clutching so tightly at his sleeve with his free hand so tightly that he kept waiting for the ripping sound of tearing fabric, and though it never came, he still waited for it.

By the time their hands stilled, Herbert was fully erect and straining against his trousers, wanting badly to squirm and twist his hips but finding Stephen’s grip on his waist still too tight to move his hips more than minutely. Then, Stephen took his hand away, and Herbert’s now free hand shot back up to his upper arm, digging in sharply as an irritated whine escaped his mouth.

To that, Stephen laughed, and Herbert soon thereafter felt his lips press against the crown of his head. “Unless you want to have to go back to Arkham with stained trousers,” he murmured into Herbert’s hair, “maybe we should leave that for later.”

Their clothes were already covered all over in pollen, but that… Actually, Herbert could imagine that all too clearly, and unless he put things off long enough that he headed back to Arkham after dark, when it was cold enough that it wouldn’t have seemed strange for his coat to be buttoned all the way down, no, _no_ , there was no way that wouldn’t have drawn comment. Leaving after dark was an impossibility; Herbert disliked being out and about at night at the best of times, and they’d brought nothing with which to light their path, not expecting that there would be anything that could even hope to keep them here past the latter hours of the afternoon. And even if the weather turned and it grew cold enough while the sun was up that Herbert could have buttoned down his coat and not looked strange, he would still have been able to _feel_ it, the mortification would still have crept up his neck as a red flush he could never have put down to the wind, and he was certain that the truth of it would have been so obvious in his face that he would have drawn comment to himself anyways.

Still cringing slightly, Herbert nodded his head, muttering, “I would like to avoid that. I’m already gossiped about more than I like, and just judging by the state of the sky, I don’t think a sudden rainstorm is too likely this afternoon. I…” He sighed, a rueful smile plucking at his lips. “Thank you.”

Stephen pressed another kiss to his hair. Teasingly, “Always.” He rubbed his hand up and down Herbert’s back, tracing a slow track down the line of his spine. Rather less teasingly, “I don’t like it when people gossip about you. I don’t want to be the cause for anything new.”

Herbert edged forward, setting himself further in the embrace of Stephen’s arms, listening to the quick, slightly off-beat pulse of Stephen’s heart beneath his clothes and his flesh. Straining as he was, he still found a smile stamping itself upon his lips, though it was a quiet thing, a quiet, tender thing that put a strange, fluttering ache in his heart. The air around them was growing incrementally warmer as the sun made its slow progress lower in the sky in the lengthening afternoon. As the air grew warmer, the heady-sweet scent in the air intensified even further, clinging to the roof of Herbert’s mouth as if he actually was drinking wine when he breathed in. His eyes fluttered open, drifted over to regard the nearest shaft of sunlight shooting in through the warped glass of the old windows. Those motes of pollen he’d thought looked like fireflies bobbing around in the still air now looked to his eyes like little pulsing sparks of flame, something that gave off no heat but put off a welcoming, enticing light, the sort of light that beckoned you to bask in it until it died.

What could be better, what could be better just now, then to sink into Stephen’s embrace, sink into his body, enjoy the sort of union he had thought completely beyond him? Even the arms wrapped about his back, the sort of embrace that could easily have been taken for platonic if not for the fact that Herbert could feel Stephen’s erection pressing against his thigh, made him melt bonelessly into Stephen’s chest, content to stay there for as long as Stephen was content to hold him against himself, perfectly happy that the little impulse of ‘ _shouldn’t you be embarrassed_?’ had finally dropped out of his head entirely.

(He couldn’t remember the last time he had been held like this. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been held. He would savor it for as long as it lasted.)

Stephen’s hands went to his shoulders, pushing him down off of his lap onto the cot, back far enough that they could look into each other’s faces once more. The color was high in Stephen’s face, faint patches of pink painted onto his cheekbones. He smiled down at him, but there was an intent that Herbert had not seen in his eyes before, steady and patient, anticipatory. His hands went from Herbert’s shoulders to his tie, starting to work on loosening the knot.

Herbert let out a long, shaky breath, and shrugged his jacket off of his shoulders, tossing it to the floor with little care for what might become of it there—it was already covered in pollen; a little dirt wasn’t going to make much of a difference. Stephen jerked his tie out from under his shirt collar and tossed it to the same patch of floor, just out of sight of two people whose attention was focused on each other to the exclusion of nearly all else. His hand lingered on the side of Herbert’s neck, stroking the front of his neck with his thumb, smile softening slightly when Herbert’s throat fluttered under his touch.

Well, if they were going to be moving on, it seemed to Herbert that he would have to make the first move pressing forwards himself. (He was being impatient, perhaps. Even the slightest movement of his hips made his erection chafe against his trousers, and after enough of that, it was getting harder and harder to bite back the frustrated, wanton sound that kept bobbing up into his throat. If he was being impatient, he thought he was _allowed_.) He brought his hands, shaking slightly and in a manner Herbert was not certain he could attribute entirely to lust, to the front of his vest, stumbling over the top button.

Stumbling long enough for Stephen to notice, and coaxingly pry Herbert’s hands away from his vest. “A-ah…” His smile took on a distinctly, oddly reassuringly nervous tilt. “Let me do that?”

And Herbert did let him, fisting his skittish, itching hands in the thin mattress, though he thought progress might have been slower than otherwise would have been achieved. Stephen’s hands trembled noticeably on the buttons on Herbert’s vest, outright stumbled on the buttons of his suspenders. As with himself, Herbert did not think he could attribute it entirely to sloppiness brought on by lust, as that nervous smile only grew more tremulous as Stephen finally managed to undo the buttons holding Herbert’s suspenders to his trousers and he yanked Herbert’s shirttails loose. Stephen was a little more careful in how he set Herbert’s vest and suspenders on the floor, leaning down momentarily to place them down instead of tossing them away, and Herbert felt a frankly absurd surge of affection swell in his chest. It was such a small thing, ultimately unimportant, but the care shown, though it chafed against his skin like sandpaper, still put that buoyant, bobbing feeling in his heart, heedless of how absurd it might be.

Herbert’s breath hitched slightly, and then more, and more, as Stephen undid his shirt buttons, one by one by one. His fingertips occasionally brushed against Herbert’s tender, over-sensitive skin, making Herbert jump, biting his lip as another hot flush began to crawl up his neck. Stephen slid his shirt slowly down off of his shoulders, and this time, there could be no question if the touch of his hands against skin was intentional. His thumbs dragged hard and slow against his arms as he pulled his shirt down, marking a trail that finally terminated at Herbert’s wrists before Stephen was setting the shirt down on the floor and taking in a deep, shuddering breath that made his whole chest tremble visibly.

Another quick, nervous smile twitched on Stephen’s lips as he turned his attention back to Herbert, though the intent in his eyes was stronger and steadier than before. Herbert stiffened as Stephen reached out and brushed his fingertips against his abdomen, just above his right hip, before whatever uncertainty might have made him hesitate at first left him, and his hands began to rove across Herbert’s chest and back.

Trying to breathe normally (the last thing, the absolute _last_ thing Herbert wanted was for all of this to end with him fainting because he had gone too long without putting air into his lungs, but it was still a bit of a struggle), Herbert found his hands returning to clutch at Stephen’s jacket sleeves. However difficult as it might have been, he kept his mouth clamped shut against all of the little noises that kept trying to escape him as Stephen’s hands moved across his back, his chest, his shoulders and his sides in firm, unhurried caresses, as if trying to map Herbert’s body for later exploration (Herbert would like that very, _very_ much). Stephen’s fingertips found the habitually tense, often sore muscles that wrapped over Herbert’s scapulae. Herbert shuddered as those fingertips began to gently knead at the thin skin that stretched over those muscles, once again struck with the urge to sink into Stephen’s embrace and never emerge from it.

“I, umm,” Stephen murmured close to his ear. “I don’t think people’s shoulders usually get like this until they’re a bit older.”

“Shut up,” Herbert hissed, though it was difficult to summon heat when all his voice wanted to do was melt in liquid pleasure.

Pleasure must have been the only thing that could make itself heard in his voice, for Stephen only chuckled, and continued his ministrations. Herbert let his eyes flutter shut as Stephen slowly worked the tension out of his flesh, setting a hard, steady pattern of strokes and kneading, further lulled by Stephen humming absently in his ear. The tension would be back, the soreness would return on its heels. Likely the very next time Herbert had to attend class, it would come back to him, that unwanted old friend, for he had parted ways with a professor under less than genial terms after class yesterday, and he really doubted that professor would be willing to just let the matter drop, and if the man made so much as a single response, Herbert _knew_ he would feel obligated to respond, but for now, for _now_ , the tension was seeping out under the care of Stephen’s steady hands, strong and gentle and dexterous, under the care Stephen had been kind enough to show him. Soon, what had been tense and sore tingled instead, feeling like liquid rather than flesh, and Stephen’s hands stilled. Herbert sighed softly. It would be sore again within a couple of days, at best, but he would hardly begrudge the relief he had found.

His eyes shot open when he felt Stephen’s lips brush against his shoulder.

Herbert craned his neck, staring, transfixed, as Stephen pressed a quick, light kiss to his right shoulder. Stephen was either unaware of his scrutiny or welcomed it and did not wish to see anything in Herbert’s face that might have made him stop short. Herbert wasn’t going to stop him, it was all he could do not to bury his hands in Stephen’s hair and hold his head to his shoulder, drawing out the sensation of his lips rasping against Herbert’s responsive skin for as long as he could, and he fisted his hands tighter in Stephen’s sleeves to keep himself from doing such, to let him do as he would. It was difficult to separate desire from the other lines of thought in his head, difficult to keep desire from snuffing them all out entirely, but there was a strain of curiosity whispering to him, bidding him to watch and see what Stephen would do next. His first impulse was to name it voyeurism, but how could it be voyeurism when it was something Stephen was doing to _him_?

If that was voyeurism, Herbert did not care about voyeurism. Not today.

Stephen drew his mouth back from skin just far enough for Herbert to see the small, eager smile spreading on his lips. His hands slid down Herbert’s back to clench tightly on his hips, giving a sharp, possessive squeeze before his lips were seeking skin once more, and kissing harder and harder.

Herbert was back to biting his lip as Stephen began to pepper his chest with kisses, winding a necklace across his clavicles that became progressively slower and harder the further he went towards Herbert’s left shoulder. Herbert watched dizzily as Stephen left a trail of red marks glistening with saliva on his skin, prickling and pulsing and _throbbing_ even after he took his mouth away. Clever hands and a clever mouth, and as Herbert watched, he began to daydream about that mouth closing around another part of his body entirely, biting down on his lip so hard he thought he could taste blood to keep a moan from escaping his mouth as he daydreamed hazily about Stephen’s tongue and his teeth working against more sensitive flesh, his cock straining against his trousers so hard that it was almost painful.

Perhaps sensing his thoughts, Stephen’s mouth soon found somewhere nearly as sensitive as what Herbert had daydreamed of to latch onto. Herbert jolted when Stephen took his nipple into his mouth, unable to push back the whimpers that jarred from between his gritted teeth as Stephen’s hot tongue circled his areola before lapping against the nipple itself. Herbert squirmed in his grasp, taking in shallow, gasping breaths that never put enough air in his lungs, but this only spurred Stephen on to suckle him hard, humming against hardening flesh, his hands now massaging Herbert’s thighs, both of which absolutely, categorically _did not_ help with Herbert’s straining erection, only made him feel like he might actually climax without so much as—

Herbert blinked, slightly dazed, when Stephen finally unlatched his mouth from his nipple, leaving it hard and red and shiny with saliva. But though he might have been dazed, that only lasted for a moment, and then Herbert surged forwards, kissing him frantically against cheeks and jaw and mouth, knowing Stephen must have been able to taste his desperation on his quivering lips and caring not at all. Those clever hands were now working his trousers open, pushing them down off of his hips. Finally, _finally_ , Stephen’s hand was on him, and even if it was only but briefly, a light, tantalizing brush of the shaft of Herbert’s cock that could provide no relief to the throbbing pressure, Herbert could still restrain himself no longer, letting a soft, breathy moan shudder into the air past Stephen’s head. Stephen pressed a smiling kiss to his cheek, and then let himself up off of the cot to finish undressing him.

In contrast to the way his hands had stumbled and trembled and hesitated over Herbert’s vest and his suspenders and his shirt, Stephen made quick work of his shoes and his trousers, leaving Herbert lying completely naked on the cot, propped up on his elbows. Stephen remained on his knees by the cot, gazing upon him with intense appreciation, his eyes lingering so long on Herbert’s cock that he felt it twitch once again.

Heat prickled just under the surface of Herbert’s skin, his pulse racing maddeningly fast. A harsh, derisive breath jarred in his mouth. He knew he wasn’t… wasn’t the most impressive of specimens. He was short and skinny by anyone’s standards, and he’d really not thought of himself as someone might stop and stare at in such blatant enjoyment, especially not when there were no clothes left to hide how scrawny he was.

“So… are you just going to look at me?” Herbert asked at last, tensely, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice, fearing Stephen would think it directed at him.

At that, Stephen rose to his feet and took off his jacket. Herbert sat up a little straighter, watching him intently, but Stephen only laid his jacket on the table before returning to him, straddling him on the cot and wrapping his arm around Herbert’s waist a third time (Herbert’s heart hammered at that, and given everything else, he could only that he liked it when Stephen did that _very_ much). In a low, throaty voice, Stephen asked him, “Can’t I look at you?”

“When it seems like _all_ you want to be doing…”

Stephen ducked his head and pressed a kiss to the underside of Herbert’s jaw. “Why shouldn’t I…” His mouth strayed a little lower, to where Herbert’s jaw met his neck. “…Look at someone…” His lips were hot against Herbert’s neck. Herbert’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling, biting his lip for what felt now like the hundredth time. “…So beautiful?”

Herbert felt something in his chest that might well have been his heart seize at ‘beautiful.’ “All you’re telling me—“ incredulous, as he’d intended himself to sound, but with a wobble like a sob hanging on to the underside of the syllables “—is that you’re a shameless flatterer.”

A puff of laughing breath hit Herbert’s neck. “Can’t be flattery if it’s true.”

Several different retorts, each one of them more hysterical-sounding to Herbert’s own mind, rattled in his throat, swallowed down before they could ever reach his mouth. None of them sounded coherent, either, and he had no idea how to string them together into anything that could have gotten a point across.

Stephen’s lips found Herbert’s right carotid artery, his mouth pressing down on Herbert’s pulse, and the strangled moan that escaped suddenly from Herbert’s mouth startled them both.

Herbert blinked, frowning at the sparks of pleasure igniting under his skin where Stephen had just kissed his neck. He had touched his own neck countless times in his life, and he’d never known the skin over the carotid artery to be as sensitive as to provoke such a reaction. Stephen had paused as well, though what he thought of it, Herbert could not say.

He soon discovered _exactly_ what Stephen thought of it. A series of frantic, increasingly high-pitched cries tore from Herbert’s mouth as Stephen latched his teeth over his carotid artery and began to suck nearly as hard as he had sucked on his nipple earlier. After just a few moments, all of Herbert’s strength vanished from his arms and he toppled back onto the cot, Stephen falling with him, but his mouth never leaving Herbert’s neck, pinning Herbert down. Stephen’s full weight was pressed down on him, now, leaving him completely immobile and unable to do anything but moan abjectly.

After what felt like an eternity and yet felt _entirely_ too quick, Stephen at last left his neck alone. On the echoes of a satisfied chuckle, “I think you liked that.”

Still struggling to breathe, a condition only partially accounted for by having Stephen’s weight pinning him to the cot, Herbert rolled his eyes and told him breathlessly, “Shut up.”

“Amazing,” Stephen said, as he finally lifted himself up, propping himself up on his arms so that Herbert could finally take a full breath. His tone was a little acerbic, but he was smiling, and the hand he brushed against Herbert’s face was gentle as it cupped his cheek. “You’re naked, you’re so eager I’m shocked you haven’t finished already, and yet you’re still a complete grouch.”

Herbert felt… not embarrassed, not quite. He felt completely beyond embarrassment. But he was being perhaps a bit too hard on Stephen, just now. He turned his head enough to press a kiss against Stephen’s palm. “Maybe so.”

“What do you want, Herbert?” Stephen asked him softly.

And irritation found him again, enough to spur Herbert to shove weakly at Stephen’s chest. “Don’t tease,” he snapped.

“Tease?” Stephen shook his head, the ghost of laughter fluttering in his neck. “I _never_ tease.”

Herbert raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“Alright,” Stephen conceded. “I do tease a bit.”

“More than a bit,” Herbert muttered.

“Maybe.” Stephen caught Herbert’s chin in his hand, running his thumb over Herbert’s lower lip, tugging it down before releasing it. His eyes were hot as he regarded him. “But I always follow through.”

Herbert stared up at him, considering the possibility that there might be more than a bit more teasing to come before Stephen finally followed through. He _was_ being impatient, but he didn’t want to wait for much longer. He might have been too reticent to do this otherwise, but he _was_ impatient, and the heady scent in the air was still working on him, singing in his veins like wine, whispering that there was much that he could do that he should not hesitate at because of reticence. Herbert put his hand to the bulge in Stephen’s trousers, and could not help but be gratified when Stephen jerked his hips, ever so slightly. “Prove it,” Herbert told him, letting his impatience seep into his voice just enough to keep any faltering breathiness at bay.

Soon thereafter, he was straddled about Stephen’s hips, his legs splayed at an awkward angle, slightly over-stretched, but it was an angle that he was determined to ignore while he explored. He doubted this would go on long enough for his hips to start aching, but if they did, there was likely some recourse to it that wouldn’t have involved stopping.

It wasn’t the first time Herbert had seen a naked man, of course. He was a medical student, and hardly a first-semester medical student, at that. He was well-acquainted with human anatomy, and could see no reason to suddenly become delicate about nakedness, now. It was just that it was the first time that had seen a naked man who was warm and alive and, _well_ , it was Stephen. He was curious. He failed to see why he should not be curious. Impatient as he was, his curiosity had for the moment gotten the better of him.

Whatever he might have thought or felt, Stephen seemed content to indulge his curiosity. He had set his hands on Herbert’s hips to steady him, saying nothing, though Herbert could feel Stephen regarding him in a silence too charged to be that of contentment, but did certainly not seem to be a match for Herbert’s own earlier impatience. That suited Herbert just fine.

He ran his hands lightly across Stephen’s chest, stroking and prodding with his fingertips, poring over the skin with intent, watchful eyes. Stephen’s arms and abdomen were peppered with dark moles of varying size, and there was a thatch of fine dark hair between his breasts, neither of which Herbert could have guessed at when he was clothed. Herbert himself had very little body hair, just a small amount on his forearms and a few wisps around his genitals, and he ran his hand up and down the hair on Stephen’s chest a few times, fascinated at the feel of it under his fingers. Stephen’s heartbeat was strong and vital under his hand. He had always been a vigorous man, and… Herbert entertained a small quirk of his lips, not quite a smile. He hoped to have more experience of Stephen’s vigor, very soon now.

Herbert leaned down to press a tentative kiss to Stephen’s shoulder, uncertain of just how much Stephen would want Herbert’s mouth on his skin; huh, he thought he could understand Stephen’s own earlier hesitation a little better, now. As it was, Stephen didn’t respond to it by pushing Herbert off of him, instead lifting his right hand off of Herbert’s hip to run slowly through his hair.

A little bolder, Herbert nuzzled his head against Stephen’s neck, grimacing when the frames of his spectacles jarred against his face as he did so. Muttering something unintelligible even to himself under his breath, he took them off and set them on the nearby windowsill before leaning back down. He kissed Stephen’s neck, curious to see if it would have the same effect on Stephen as it had on him, starting at the base, working his way upwards towards his jaw. Nipping and sucking at his flesh did not quite feel right; it had been so wonderful when Herbert had felt teeth on his skin, when he had felt Stephen’s mouth start to suck instead of just applying pressure, but the action didn’t fit right in his own mouth.

It did not have the same effect on Stephen, as it happened. No startled or desperate moans escaped from his mouth, no tremors wracked his body, there was no squirming or writhing to follow. Stephen sighed in a contentment that burrowed down deep into Herbert’s heart and set hooks there, refusing to be dislodged. When Herbert lifted his head up a little, their eyes met. Stephen stared up at him, his eyes shadowed with an adoration that made Herbert’s throat tighten, an adoration like he was the only thing in the world that mattered to him. It made Herbert quiver in a way none of his touches had accomplished, and all he could think to do was sit up enough that he’d be able to avoid seeing it. (Stephen would still be looking at him like that. He still wouldn’t know what to do about it, what he could even _say_.)

Herbert sat back up sharply, and this had an effect he had not intended. He was, after all, sitting straddling Stephen’s hips, and as he pulled himself back up into a sitting position, their erect cocks rubbed against each other roughly. Another strangled moan forced its way out of Herbert’s mouth, his pulse racing. Stephen arched his back, groaning softly, his grip on Herbert’s hips tightening. When Herbert caught his breath, he directed his gaze downwards, considering.

He had watched as Stephen undressed earlier, stripping off his clothing with a speed that betrayed his eagerness completely. He had thought then, and thought now, that Stephen’s cock was larger than he had expected. Not disproportionate for a man of his stature, but it had certainly drawn Herbert’s notice. He’d not touched it, not without cloth as a buffer, but now he was burning to, to trace its outlines, feel the pulse of blood below skin.

That was the plan. That was the plan, but Herbert had only managed to brush his fingers against the head when Stephen suddenly tipped him forward down onto his chest. “Now who’s a tease?” Stephen asked him, though without any real rancor.

“Not nearly as much of one as _you_ ,” was Herbert’s ready response.

“Maybe.” Stephen’s hand was back in Herbert’s hair, fingernails scraping gently against Herbert’s scalp. “We’ll see.”

Herbert tried to push himself back upright, but Stephen wouldn’t let him haul himself any higher than onto his elbows. “Stephen, I—“

“What do you want?” Stephen asked him a third time, running his left hand up and down his back slowly.

Herbert sucked a sharp breath in through his teeth. “You keep asking that. I should think it would be _obvious_ by now.”

“You haven’t answered me yet.”

“And I _still_ say—“ Stephen’s hand strayed down from Herbert’s back to his buttock and squeezed. Herbert jumped and glared down at him, flustered, but Stephen and his still-fondling hand gave him no heed. “I still say—“ and it was difficult to say anything at all without sounding wantonly eager “—I should think it would be obvious.”

At length, Stephen’s hand returned to Herbert’s back, a development Herbert greeted with relief, if only because it made it a little easier for him to think. Stephen brought both of his hands to Herbert’s face, thumbs rubbing against his cheekbones. “I ask,” he said softly, “because I want to hear you say it. It matters to me that I hear you say it.”

Herbert swallowed hard. A peevish part of him considered saying he wanted to get dressed and leave, but that was pushed down almost the moment it was born, for fear that Stephen might take him at his word. “I want…” He fisted his hands in the mattress, but could not keep them from shaking. “I want you.”

Stephen turned his head slightly to one side. “To?” he prompted.

It felt like flaying himself open, if flaying was supposed to involve ecstasy alongside the agony. “I want you to…” Herbert squeezed his eyes shut. Forcing his voice into a shaky semblance of calm, he said, slowly, deliberately, “I want you to make love to me.”

Stephen reeled his head down, kissed his mouth long and slow, sucking on his lower lip until it throbbed. This gave Herbert’s heart enough time to stop pounding like it would burst.

“There’s Vaseline in one of the bags,” Stephen told him when he broke away, smiling at him with such affection that Herbert felt his skin burn and his heart begin to pound again. “I’ll go get it.”

Swallowing back on a series of thin, desperate noises, few of which had anything to do with lust, Herbert settled himself on his back on the cot as Stephen rooted around in the bags, looking for the ointment they had always kept on hand in case of burns and now would be used for— Herbert ran a hand through his hair, trying to steady himself and failing completely. He wished the air was clear of that sweet smell, but wishes were not horses and beggars were not riding and the scent in the air was wound deep in his body, driving his need and his lust and whatever else it was that left him so frantic for Stephen’s embrace, the thing he would not, _would not_ name.

The desperate, aching feeling eased a little when Stephen returned to him with the jar of Vaseline and one of the rags they had used to clean up the laboratory equipment, one of the rags with somewhat less pollen on it than its fellows. Stephen held up the jar a little awkwardly, his eyes flicking from Herbert’s face to his groin, then back to his face. “Have you… Do you know what to do with this?”

Herbert shrugged, trying and failing to seem casual. “I have an idea.” _Not_ a topic covered in their classes, but he wasn’t a fool; he could guess well enough what they were going to need the slick ointment for.

He reached out to take the jar from Stephen, only for Stephen to gently press his hand back down to the cot. “Let me, then.” He started to work the cork off of the jar. “If you’d rather do it yourself, next time, you can watch me now.”

 _Next time_. Herbert nodded shakily. “Alright.”

“Hold your legs open,” Stephen told him, his voice trembling with an awkwardness he couldn’t seem to banish from him as he scooped up a generous amount of the ointment and coated his fingers with it. “A little wider, Herbert.”

Herbert complied, holding his legs as far apart as he could without his hips beginning to ache. It left him feeling more than a little vulnerable, but that feeling passed quickly. Stephen wouldn’t hurt him, Stephen who had given willingly what Herbert would never have asked him for, it was ridiculous to feel vulnerable, and he had an easier time pushing the impulse aside than he thought he would have with anyone else.

“Okay,” Stephen said on a gust of breath. “That’s…” He licked his lips. “Yeah, that’s good. Just… just try to relax.”

Easier said than done for someone with Herbert’s temperament, and indeed, he winced when he felt the first of Stephen’s fingers press inside of him. He tried to hide it, but not quickly enough. Stephen sighed and kissed his brow apologetically.

“I’m sorry. Honestly, this wasn’t very comfortable for me, either, not when it was me getting…” He broke off, clicking his tongue. “Well, you know.”

He had kept his finger still while he was speaking, and Herbert, once the initial discomfort at the intrusion passed, didn’t find it painful as he had expected it to, or even really all that uncomfortable. He waved a hand through the warm, still air. “It’s alright. It doesn’t hurt.”

Stephen smiled at him in frank relief. “I—Good. I should probably warn you now, but that stuff’s messy. I always had the devil’s own time cleaning it out; you’re probably gonna have the same trouble.”

The irritation Herbert should have felt at the prospect of that was distant, remote, and honestly felt unimportant. “I’ll…” Stephen’s finger began to move, spreading the ointment inside of him, and it was a moment before Herbert could breathe again. “I’ll worry about that later. It would be much more uncomfortable without, I imagine.”

“I’d have found some other way to take care of you if we didn’t have it,” Stephen told him stubbornly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Herbert smiled up at him, a warmth blooming in his chest that had nothing to do with the warm air around them. “I know.”

Soon, Stephen pressed a second finger inside of him, and Herbert was biting down on his lip and every noise that threatened to jar from his mouth once more, half-because he did not want Stephen to take the noises for sounds of distress, and half-because he just did _not_ want to let them out. It felt… Oh, one of Stephen’s fingers rubbed against a particularly sensitive spot, sending dull sparks of pleasure radiating up Herbert’s body. It was hard to catch a breath, hard to think—both of Stephen’s fingers rubbed there this time, and all thought was momentarily pushed straight out of Herbert’s head—but from the location, he thought that must have been the prostate. You know—he rubbed against it _hard_ , possibly on purpose; Herbert swallowed back on a moan that reverberated so loudly in his throat that he thought it might have vibrated in his bones if he had let it slip—they _really_ didn’t talk about these things in class, but Herbert had read more medical textbooks than he had fingers—oh, _God,_ Stephen’s fingers—and he had gotten the impression that the prostate might be sensitive to stimulation, he’d just not realized _how_ sensitive. It felt good, it felt _wonderful_ …

“You know,” Stephen whispered suddenly into his ear, “there’s nobody here but us. There’s no houses for miles, we’re in the middle of the woods, and everybody in Arkham avoids the woods like they expect something to jump out from behind a tree and drag them off to eat them. I think you can be as loud as you like. There’s nobody to hear it but us.”

It was a moment before Herbert could trust himself to speak without moaning. “I’ll… I’ll manage,” he said stiffly.

“Will you?”

Herbert had no time to ask Stephen what he meant by that. Stephen’s mouth was on his neck, seeking the twin of the artery he had sucked to draw such startled and startling moans from Herbert’s body, teeth latching over sensitive flesh. “Oh… Oh, Stephen.” He reared his fingers back and thrust them back in abruptly. “Stephen, please.” Stephen’s fingers thrust inside over and over again in sharp, scissoring strokes. “Oh, please.” His tongue rubbed rough circles against Herbert’s neck. “Please.” Herbert’s voice wobbled as it grew higher and louder on every, “Please, please, _please_.”

“As you wish,” Stephen mumbled, leaving one last kiss on reddened flesh that made Herbert shudder and moan. He no longer had the ability to restrain it.

It was considerably quicker work for Stephen to rub ointment on his cock and, after wiping his fingers clean, set the jar and the rag on the windowsill by Herbert’s spectacles. “Okay.” He clutched at Herbert’s hips, while Herbert’s hands shot up and clutched at his back for purchase, fingernails digging into skin. Stephen licked his lips, eyes poring over Herbert’s face. “Okay.” And then, slowly, he pushed his cock deep inside of Herbert’s body, until it was completely sheathed in flesh.

This was not like the fingers. A soft gasp tumbled from Herbert’s lips, matched by the groan that jarred from Stephen’s mouth. Stephen watched him intently, poring over every minute change in expression, every flutter of his throat and every twitch and gasp. He was so full, the feeling of union, of their bodies united and intertwined, more gratifying and reassuring than any kiss or touch or word had ever been. Stephen was still for a long moment, a smile like bliss cutting into his mouth, the only move he made being to work at Herbert’s thighs once more, massaging the quivering flesh until Herbert was moaning unabashedly.

“Is… Is that good?” Stephen murmured.

Unable even to find the will to string the words together, Herbert nodded his head choppily.

“I’m glad,” Stephen told him, his voice cracking a little with something that sounded like relief, and then he drew his hips back a few inches, before thrusting back inside.

They were short, shallow thrusts at first, though even they knocked noises from Herbert’s mouth that he barely recognized as belonging to his own voice, even as he hooked his legs around Stephen’s waist and clenched them tight, encouraging him closer, deeper, to take his pleasure without restraint. Stephen watched him closely still, obviously pleased by every gasp and moan, every arch of Herbert’s hips to meet his thrusts, every pleasured, half-conscious smile. He would pause between the thrusts on occasion to roll and pinch one of Herbert’s nipples between his thumb and his forefinger or to nibble teasingly at his earlobe or to claim a kiss from Herbert’s open mouth and flick his tongue against the roof.

Soon, however, this was no longer enough, and short, shallow thrusts became faster and harder, Stephen setting a pace that sent waves of searing pleasure shooting up Herbert’s body, pushing all coherent thought from his mind. His moans turned to cries that grew higher and louder and more frantic with each thrust of Stephen’s hips, until Herbert was struggling to recognize his own voice in between and he could no longer hear Stephen’s own pants over them at all.

He had no idea how long it was that their bodies were locked thus. Time was a distant consideration, unimportant. Sunlight spilled over them still, so it could not have been the hours it would have taken for night to fall, though it certainly _felt_ that way, when single moments were stretching out and out and out, every nerve in Herbert’s body hyper-receptive to the touch of skin on his skin, flesh on his flesh. He was dizzy, the sweet air climbing into his mind and assailing all attempts at thought, so dizzy that even lying on his back on the cot he felt like he was falling, and the only things that kept him from tumbling were his arms and legs wrapped around Stephen’s back, Stephen’s hands on his hips. He had never known such pleasure. He did not want it to end.

Stephen’s thrusts grew ragged and uneven, his panting breaths at last becoming loud enough to be heard over Herbert’s cries. He bent down seeking Herbert’s mouth, kissing him feverishly as he pushed closer and closer towards climax. Stephen moaned into his mouth as his body spasmed in orgasm, Herbert gasping at the hot, wet surge of semen pulsing inside of him.

But Herbert was still not spent. He was still hard, so painfully hard now that even the faintest brush of movement against his cock made him cry out in mingled frustration and desperation. He stared pleadingly up into Stephen’s flushed, pleasured face, mouthing words that couldn’t find their way out of his throat, praying he would understand them anyways.

Stephen began to kiss his face, lips and jaw and cheeks, brow and eyelids and the tip of his nose, while at last, at _last,_ his right hand moved from Herbert’s hip and grasped his cock firmly.

Stephen stroked him, hand twisting and fluttering against the shaft, the head, the testicles, sometimes so lightly that Herbert could barely feel his hand there, and sometimes so hard that he could barely even move his hand up or down at all. Herbert tried to arch his hips up into Stephen’s hand, but his movements were restricted, both by Stephen’s other hand still holding him down, and by Stephen’s cock still thrust deep inside of him. Herbert’s cries grew louder and louder as Stephen assumed a hard, steady pace. Herbert twisted on the cot beneath him, head tipped back and mouth left hanging open even when he had to draw breath with which to cry out once more. He had been eager for this for so long, he could not help but think that every stroke would be the one that finally brought him to climax, but climax never came and soon, Herbert wasn’t just crying out but, he didn’t realize it at first, but oh, God, he was _screaming_ , high, pealing screams that made his ears ring as he began to fear that he would never reach his climax and he would be left to fret and twist on the cot until he was forced to go away unsated—

Climax came on him unawares, then, a sharp, staccato jolt of his hips as the world seemed to tremble around him and semen splattered on his chest and on Stephen’s hand. Herbert collapsed back on the cot, his hands falling away from Stephen’s back as he struggled to breathe and lied there prone and panting, bathed in sweat.

He did not realize what the rough thing rubbing against his chest was, at first, but eventually Herbert was able to focus his eyes enough to see Stephen scrubbing at him with the clean end of the rag, mopping up the semen that had splattered on his chest just a moment ago. Gratitude surged inside of him, but he could not find his voice to speak.

Stephen did not seem to be seeking his words, anyways. He leaned down for a long, wet kiss from Herbert’s mouth, slow and unhurried, perhaps savoring the salt on Herbert’s lips. Herbert could not say for certain. He was so dazed, so dizzy with the mingled ecstasy and relief of his climax that he was perfectly content to let Stephen savor for as long as he liked.

“So…” Stephen’s fingers felt refreshingly cool as they brushed against his cheek, smoothing some of his hair out of his face. “I, umm…” He laughed self-consciously. “Didn’t peg you for a screamer.”

Something that might have been irritation pricked at Herbert, then, though it was distant next to the persistent pleasure of union, the affection in Stephen’s face as he regarded him, the fingers slowly petting his hair, the memory of his own voice lifted up in high-pitched screams that was yet potent enough to drive arousal back under his skin. “Yes, well…” Herbert’s voice scraped a little; it wasn’t painful, not exactly, but he had screamed and screamed and screamed, and he had managed to leave himself a little hoarse. He tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t have carried the risk of giving offense, tried to think of something to say that wasn’t completely _wanton_. “You… you have that effect on me.”

Another laugh, startled and pleased, though it could not find enough to be full-bodied. “I make you scream, do I? I’ll keep that in mind; it should be—“ his eyes flicked over Herbert’s body, lying prone beneath his “—it should be useful later.”

Herbert rolled his eyes, and hoped it wouldn’t be too obvious how much he looked forward to ‘later.’ “Shut up.”

“Ah, you don’t want me to shut up. You’d have nothing to complain about if I did.”

“Shut up,” Herbert repeated, what little heat had been in his voice before flooding out of it in a torrent as a smile curled unbidden on his mouth.

Stephen set his hands on Herbert’s hips once more, slowly withdrawing from him. A small whine of protest curdled on Herbert’s tongue at the separation, unwelcome as it was, but Stephen just shushed him and settled onto the cot beside him, folding Herbert into his arms. Granted, lying on their sides, pressed flush against each other, was just about the only way they could have both lied on the cot at the same time, besides one of them lying on top of the other, but Herbert wasn’t complaining. If he could not have that singular union, he could at least have this, the press of skin against skin, the feel of Stephen’s heartbeat, slowly coming down from the mad pulse of desire and gratification, under his hands, the faint rise and fall of Stephen’s chest, the arms looped around him and the occasional soft, lazy kiss.

Herbert could hear wind battering against the exterior walls of the house, very faintly, but the noise only came to his ears at odd moments, and it took him a moment or two to recognize what it was at all. It could not find them here, and things that could not find them here had to fight to make their way into his considerations. They lied in the shaft of sunlight shooting through the warped glass of the window over the cot, warm and quiet. Occasionally, when Herbert breathed in, the heady scent still suffusing the air pierced his lungs, making his head swim anew, but lying on his side on the cot in Stephen’s arms, it mattered to him a little less.

He was… It was bizarre how happy he was, it had been so long since he had come close enough to feeling this happy that the emotion was as foreign to him as the furthest reaches of the globe from the furtive, haunted valley in which he had been born and brought up. But there was just something about the idea that he would, that they would, that they would be together in every sense, that Herbert could have this at all, that he could _keep_ him, that made happiness bubble up in his chest like laughter, though it ached sweetly in a way that laughter never had, not for him.

They were going to have to get up, eventually. Eventually, they were going to have to get up, get dressed, and take the bags of equipment back to Arkham with them. Arkham had never been a place Herbert was too eager to return to; even the chaos and cacophony of Boston, so overwhelming to Herbert that he could not help but feel a little threatened by it, was not enough to keep at bay the surge of frustration and the little thrill of weary dread whenever Herbert had to board a train back to Arkham. He could not remember a time he had hated the idea of going back to Arkham the way he hated it, now. In Arkham, they would have to be furtive, they would have to be _so_ careful, there could be no lying satisfied in each other’s arms in beams of sunlight, it would be snatching kisses behind closed doors, and unless Herbert could somehow find a way to keep his voice down enough to avoid drawing everybody living in the Caldwell house with him, this seemed the only place they had where they could make love without risk of discovery. (It wasn’t the worst place, Herbert supposed. It was sheltered from the elements, and decently clean. But the cot was still a cot and Herbert thought he would prefer a _bed_ , and there was no way they were getting a proper bed out here, by hook or by crook. They’d barely been able to get the cot out here; a bed was a complete impossibility.)

Herbert would manage. He’d not survived so long in this place by being unable to bury things within himself, so deep that they could never see the light of day unless he let them back up willingly. Judging by how Stephen had talked, he had experience of burying things as well, at least when it came to this. They’d manage. He just wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of going back to a place where they’d have to.

Slowly, gently at first, Stephen began to kiss him again. With the patience of a man who knew full well that neither of them had anywhere they needed to be, that neither of them would be missed for the rest of the day, at least, his questing mouth searched out Herbert’s lips, his jaw, what little skin on his neck hadn’t been sucked red and lightly throbbing. Herbert smiled and reciprocated, happy for any excuse to draw this out a little longer, for an excuse not to get up from the cot and go back to Arkham.

Stephen’s thigh shifted, slotting between Herbert’s legs and _pushing_ , and a high, breathy moan burst from Herbert’s mouth as a searing shock of pleasure shot up from his groin. He realized with a fuzzy confusion like cotton wool that he was hard again, not quite as achingly as he had been by the time their bodies had finally, _finally_ been united, but close to it, or… or actually, he could not remember if his erection had ever gone down, could not remember if the pressure on his flesh had ever been totally released. He could feel the head of Stephen’s cock, yes, _quite_ erect, dragging against his belly, and he wondered if Stephen was having the same thoughts as him, if he felt the same confusion.

But then, Stephen latched his arm tight around Herbert’s waist and dragged his thigh up again, grinding against his groin as he nipped Herbert’s neck and hummed against his skin, and Herbert let all such thoughts out of his mind like water spilling out from between his loose fingers. He sought out flesh feverishly, ready to fall into Stephen’s embrace and sink into his body, eager to be possessed, thinking on the anticipated union with giddy joy. For now, there was nothing he wanted more.

Herbert and Stephen spent the rest of the afternoon in a dizzy, pleasured haze, paying no heed to the passage of time, their thirst or hunger, or anything that went on outside the Chapman house. Only when night fell and the air began to chill did they finally drop into an exhausted sleep, wrapped together against the cold, and woke slowly next morning to air that had gone stale, and a field full of wilting flowers.


End file.
